Billy Graham Faces Backlash Over Mormon 'Cult' Removal

(RNS) The Rev. Samuel Wynn admired Billy Graham and his evangelistic association for decades, joining its spiritual crusades and urging fellow Christians to do the same. But no more.

"I will never again support anything by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association," said Wynn, the superintendent of a United Methodist Church district in Fayetteville, N.C.

The source of Wynn's ire: The BGEA's recent removal of language on its website calling Mormonism a "cult."

The scrubbing followed GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney's pilgrimage to Billy Graham's mountaintop home in Montreat, N.C. After the Oct. 11 meeting, Graham pledged to "do all I can to help" Romney, according to a campaign aide.

40. All religions are a cult - here's the definition

cult
noun
1. a particular system of religious worship, especially with reference to its rites and ceremonies.
2. an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, especially as manifested by a body of admirers: the physical fitness cult.
3. the object of such devotion.
4. a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc.
5. Sociology . a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols.

Just because someone uses a word incorrectly and it becomes common, doesn't mean it's actual definition.

41. The de-facto (rational) definition of a cult is

47. If that was the definition (and sorry, it's not) then Mormonism would not be a cult.

You can't be any more politically powerful then to have a member of said cult running for president with tons of wealthy backers. And this doesn't even get into their political power at getting Prop. 8 passed, or just the fact that they effectively "own" a state and influence the vote of that state in elections. IF this was a valid definition, then we'd have to say that Mormonism outgrew being a cult loooong ago.

Edited to add: I say it's not the definition because you can belong to, say, the Cult of Apple. Yet Apple is far from powerless. Size doesn't define what is or is not a cult, nor does power.

64. linguistically related to the definition of "a terrorist".

62. My opinion is that Rmoney is the GOP nominee not because of but in spite of his religion.

Mormonism/LDS doesn't fall into my previous definition anyway. "cult" is a neutral appellation even though many people use it pejoratively. I think ALL religion is insane and delusional but I reserve the term cult for a select few...in my own estimation. I know mileage varies wildly and that's ok.

81. Moslems also believe that at the end of times, it is Christ that will return and lead the Moslems

During the Middle ages, it was common for Christians to view Islam as a heretical Christian group as opposed to another religion. To a lesser extent, so did the Moslems when it came to Christians.

One of the reasons for this position was Mohammad used many of the same text in the Jewish Bible along with stories tied in with Christianity. An example of the later is the story of the Christians being persecuted by the Romans who retreated into a cave and slept for 309 years and during that 309 years a dog watched over them so no one would brother them (This is the Story of the Cave in the Koran). Another such early Christian Legend that made the Koran is how Mary gave birth to Jesus without any pain, for she was the perfect woman.

English translation of the Islamic Book of Mariam (This was Mary's actual name, it had been the name of Moses's wife, the Catholic Vulgate (Latin translation of the Bible) used Mariam for every other Mariam in the Bible, but reserved the name Mary for the Virgin Mother.

Please note the Koran is organized is length of books, the longest books are first, the shortest book is at the end.

Just a comment on Christianity and Islam, both are interconnected, many of the stories in both the Koran and the Bible are stories that tell lessons for people to live by. We have to remember, both books are NOT list of things we are to do or not do, but stories about how others have faced and handled similar problems. Thus one should NOT give much weight to a single comment in such a story, but the story as a whole and what the story as a while was meant to support. As a Catholic Cardinal once wrote, the Bible is just a book, it is a collection of stories nothing more nothing less. It is collection of stories to help us live our own lives not a list of things we have to do (or not do). The Cardinal went on and said, God gave us the ability to think, but thought without an idea to frame those thoughts is meaningless. The bible is just one way to frame your thoughts, if used properly a good tool, if used improperly a tool of evil, i.e. the Bible is just like any other tool or idea, capable of both and it is our duty to use it and any other tool we have for good.

7. When all of these right-wing

"Christians" thought that someone like that idiot Santorum (to them, a "real" Christian) was going to be the nominee they were calling Mitt and his religion a "cult". Now that Mitt is running against Obama they support him and his cult so they can get rid of Obama. What a bunch of hypocrites.

21. This is because all of them have discovered that they are Mormons of the "Chrstian" sub-type. nt

9. Bigotry and greed.

Mormonism was a cult until a mega-millionaire became the opponent of a Black man who supports the 99%. I don't remember, but during the last election after palin got the nomination, did graham scrub anything about witchcraft from his site?

10. Check The Bible

The reason why Mormonism is essentially a Christian heresy, and was universally regarded as such until Mitt Romney received the Republican nomination is clearly expressed in the Letter from Paul to the Galatians, chapter 1 verse 9:
If any man is preaching to you a gospel that is contrary to what you received (from me), he is to be accursed!

43. According to Saul, the Terrorist of Tarsus. Check this out

51. It has nothing to do with Paul and HIS unchristian ministry

Because, if one is a Paulist, I don't believe they can also be a Christian. I don't get why Christians still study anything but the Gospels and The Acts, and even John is rather suspect imo.

Regardless, the LDS believe in a polytheistic religion, and do not believe in the Trinity. These two things alone make the LDS not only NOT Christian, but also makes it NOT an Abrahamic religion, like Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. They literally do not worship the same God. That's not even getting into things like Earth's God having actual sex with Mary, nor the Jesus and Satan being brothers stuff.

63. Here's a rational response to that:

11. I've said many a time

That Romney was going to have a hard time with evangelical Christians because their leaders had called Mormonism a cult and satanic for years. I also said that the leaders would show themselves to be the hypocrites they are and do a 180 and fall in behind Romney, but their flock would have a hard time mustering up the enthusiasm. And thanks to their breaking the commandment of not bearing false witness, in the more extreme parts of their flocks, the election comes down to the Mormon versus the Muslim, giving them no real reason to get excited about voting.

I've seen a few articles like this one - evangelical Christian can't vote for a cult - and even have a few friends who while voting for him are not doing it because they're excited about it and are in fact troubled in a religious sense. Its their hatred of Obama that's pushing them to slowly get off the couch and trudge despondently to the voting booths.

24. Oh, yeah!

And those Baptists don't like it when those Catholic ceremonies call for Catholics to kiss the feet of the baby Jesus.

How do I know? Raised as a Baptist...married a Catholic. Shocked the whole town!!! LOL

I don't believe for a minute all of these "non-demonimational" churches that have sprung up. It all sounds good. it all looks good. But when you get right down to it, they each have their own ties to one of the main religions, and sooner or later, their beliefs will conflict with one another and they will be duking it out.

23. lol

25. BGEA is just a name now

like Jimmy Dean sausage. has no relation to the original person. Some Cultist called Franklin Graham runs things now Should be renamed the FGEA. Billy knows it's a cult. But it's a political wing now thanks to that Jackass Franklin who doesn't give a shit about his dad. That money you bet..

26. Religious Endorsements

To me, it simply reaffirms that religious endorsements are sold to the highest bidder. How can Mormonism be considered a cult one day by the Graham website, and then not be considered a cult the following day?

It either IS a cult in Graham's views, or it is NOT a cult. Obviously, since the language was on the website, Graham thought Mormonism is a cult. To have scrubbed the website, to me, is pretty hypocritical.

45. Good! Let us Prey!

31. Please tell me

that there is a SuperPac preparing to send educational materials to Christians in Virginia and North Carolina about Jesus' "also ran" status, powerful underwear, and the star system Kolob. Someone is on that, right?

54. Oh yeah baby

35. I hope it really does backfire in a big way because Frank Shaeffer is extremely concerned about them

doing this. Says it shows how they know that they will get the forced-birth support they want from Romney. He's also worried that it will unleash 1/3 of the electorate to feel free to go vote for Romney now.

Those with some conviction and integrity on at least this topic will react as Wynn did, but to a lot of them it will clear their conscience to vote for Romney since there were probably waiting for a sign from god that it is okay to do so.

53. Methodists ARE Evangelicals

I think a lot of people don't realize that.

They are, however, not Fundamentalists, and are also not anti science. For example, the official stance on Evolution is that it's A-OK. There is also a split re: same-sex marriage, but that split is narrowing every year. Also, women are ordained and hold other leadership roles in the Church. A friend is a Methodist minister btw.

65. Methodists baptize babies

Definitions of "evangelical" greatly vary of course, but almost all don't believe in baptizing babies and they are almost always lumped with mainline Protestants. You are right about not being fundamentalist though.

76. The Methodist Church considers itself Evangelical

79. Pedobaptism versus Credobaptism isn't a dividing line for fundamentalism, plenty of

fundamentalist groups fall on either side of that debate. OTOH, Baptists and Pentecostals are credobaptist, which is probably where you picked up that impression. However, the big trend in wackdoodle theology is NeoCalvinist Reformed theology, and they tend to be evenly split between credobaptist Reformed Baptists and pedobaptist Reformed Presbyterians.

66. Spam deleted by NRaleighLiberal (MIR Team)

67. Theologically Mormonism teaches the existence of a multitude of Gods of which the God of the Bible

and the Book of Mormons is only one of a countless number of essentially equal Gods. Whether or not there does exist a multitude of Gods - I have no personal opinion one way or the other. But, such a believe system is not in any orthodox, traditional or Evangelical sense a Christan religion. The Reverend Graham who I have generally regarded as a fairly decent sort is simply declaring openly that he considers electing a Republican President to be far more important than the core beliefs of his life's work.